With These Eyes
by thisgirlscribes
Summary: :Abandoned: Sometime during the three years of Naruto's training trip, Tsunade sends her newest jounin on a mission with her eager apprentice. Everything goes wrong and Sakura ends up with a gift she didn't really want.
1. High Above

**Disclaimer:** I own peanuts

* * *

You are high above the trees. It is only you in this windy sky, where far below, trees grow in the seemingly endless water and mists of the Country of Water. It is lonely up here, wings outstretched against the breeze, keeping steady like firm sails of a boat. 

Further down, out of the blue, and the trees come into focus. The horizon does not stretch so endlessly and the trees are living things with leaves and bark, not just mere smudges of green below.

Further down still, and the branches impede the flight of our transport, but now you can hear the sounds of the swamp. The insects chirp and animals rustle in the leaves and you can hear the sound of voices…

There are humans in this place, where none usually tread. Landing in the foliage above them, you see there are two of them; one male, and one female. Both are dirty and ragged, both are on the ground, and both are… hiding.

Further in still, leaving the body of the bird, further in, to where no animal can go. Two minds, two streams of consciousness. One broken and hurt, the other worried, frantic.

Let us listen to them now.

_**my legs hurt, kneeling on mud and dirt. he's dying. green hands, the colour of healing, of life and of death. trying to save his life. i know i will fail.**_

"I want to show them what I can be." _i hurt all over, pain_

"Show them?" _**how? **_"Greatest Hyuuga alive, most developed, powerful Byakugan yet-" _**but that doesn't change the fact that you're dying. **_"-but that doesn't change the fact that you're dying." _**there. i said it.**_

_pain. ow. _"They _caged_ me, Sakura"

"Yes they did. You can- you _have_ worked past that. They wouldn't hurt you." _**like they didn't hurt your father. **_"They're our comrades." _**so were sasuke and orochimaru, once.**_

_it hurts. _"I just want to fly free…"

_**so? **_"What can you do, as you are now? How can you possibly show them that their cage can be broken?" _**that you are free?**_

"If I can only do it in death, then that is how I will do it… Sakura, listen to me." _ignore the pain. move past it and tell her, tell her_

_make her fly for you._

OoOoo

Time passes.

OoOoo

"No. No no nononoNO! I won't, you hear me? I can't!"

_**dying man, respect his wishes. do it.**_

"I can't."

_**do it**_

"I c-can't."

_**do it.**_

"…it is your choice." _it hurts worse now. ow._

OoOoo

Time passes once more.

OoOoo

"No. It's your choice. I'll do it."

_**yes i will because i've always wondered-**_

"Thankyou."

_**-what will the world look like through your eyes?**_

How interesting. A decision has been reached. But it is now time for you to leave, and you return to the bird, catching a small snatch of conversation as you withdraw from the human minds.

"Neji-san, you're really sure? I-I can try again to extract the poison-"

"No. Do it, Sakura, before it's too late. I want to be free."

"…Okay."

The bird flaps its wings, once, twice and takes off. As you fly away with it, you can hear a cry of pain, cut off sharply and followed by another. The sounds attract your attention and you turn back to see, but find you cannot. The bird is flying steadily onward, away from this place. You are caged within it, bound by its decisions and where it chooses to go. It is a horrible, terrifying feeling, not knowing where your life will pan out to next, what path this flight will take you.

But at least the bird flies free.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Well, here I am with my first posted story! Yes, it is a story this time, and not just a drabble set. :) The writing style in this is probably gonna change a lot, as I'm figuring out my writing style and trying to improve it at the same time, so be patient, neh?

Sorry if the writing is a bit confusing- **bold** is Sakura's thoughts, underlined is Neji's thoughts, and the rest is their speech.

Reviews make me happy! _(hint-hint)_


	2. Toward Home

**Disclaimer:** I own peanuts

* * *

"Neji-san." Sakura saw his eyelids flutter and knew that he was still conscious. She bent close to him, her pink hair creating a curtain around them. "I can- can-," her voice cracked, "-kill you if you want. Do you want me to?" There was silence. Sakura stayed bent down by his head, waiting nervously for his answer. 

"…s"

"Okay then. This won't hurt, Neji-san," she promised, swallowing nervously. Still keeping her head above his, she brought her hand up and placed it flat against his chest, directly above his heart. She made a half-ram seal with her other hand, using it to concentrate her chakra. It only took a little while for her to feel it building up, looking for an exit. She briefly considered letting it burn her up as well, but Neji stirred weakly and she sighed. _I made a promise to him._

"Goodbye, Neji-san. I'll- I'm gonna miss you."

She leant in and kissed him, completing the circuit and letting her chakra flow from her to him. She stopped his heart and fried his chakra pathways, killing him almost instantaneously. Neji's body slumped, the will that had been holding him upright finally gone. Sakura could feel the tears slipping down her cheeks, soaking the bandages that covered her sore, bruised eyes.

It was a long while before she moved again, roused by a cool breeze that blew through the thick copse of trees. She took hold of Neji's feet and clumsily arranged him in a lying position, making sure as best she could that his hair was smooth and neat.

"Your hair was always nicer than mine. I was constantly jealous of it."

Sakura moved away, rummaging through Neji's pack for a ration bar. Eating it took her less than half a minute, her depleted body eager for the nutrients. With food in her belly and nothing more that she needed to stay awake for, exhaustion took its toll and she began to feel drowsy.

"Gotta stay awake… Neji'll take the next shift…no, dead… yeah… forgot… dead… sleep… need… to… sle-e-ep…" With a massive yawn, she laid down next to Neji, curling up into his side to stay warm.

Waking up the next morning, she felt sore and tired, her muscles protesting as she stretched. Birds were chirping somewhere nearby and she smiled, for a moment forgetting the horrors of the night before. The bandages were rough against her eyelids, and she could feel something dry and crusted around them

She began to gently unwind the material that had once been Neji's arm wrappings, wincing as her fingers accidentally brushed the bruising around her eyes. The light seemed brighter than it had before, and squinting hurt her swollen skin. She blinked, looking around their small hideaway.

There was Neji, a face that was pale with death, and there was his pack. Her pack was missing and she remembered that it was probably at the bottom of a river somewhere. As she looked past them to the small crawlspace where they had entered the thicket of bamboo, something pink caught her eye and she peered at it, trying to see what it was. With a sharp jab of pain, her vision suddenly kaleidoscoped, zooming in on the scrap of cloth from her shirt. She could see each individual strand of the fabric. She blinked, surprised, and her vision flickered, the ground pinwheeling away from her and the trees seeming to stretch up to infinity.

A pressure was building behind her eyelids which steadily became more and more painful. Sakura whimpered, digging the heels of her palms into her eyes, trying desperately to stop the hurt. Even with her hands covering her eyes, she could still see the world around her, in a pale monochrome version of what it really was. She gasped as the pain spiked again and bit down on her hand, desperately trying not to make a noise._ Are there any enemies nearby?! I can't __**see**_

She looked around desperately, her eyes zooming in and out and flicking from one view to another. There was nobody in sight. Good. She gave another whimper as she saw the chakra flow inside an insect, digging her teeth so deeply into her hand that she broke the skin, blood spilling out. _I… can't… stop… this… pressure… This… rushing… feeling… Rushing?_ With a start, Sakura put her hands back over her eyes, fighting through the pain, and _pushed_. There was a sudden feeling of emptiness, and then it all went dark.

_Two weeks later…_

Sakura stood at the border to the lands of Konoha, where the outside ring of the patrols around the village stopped. She reached up and touched her hitae-ate nervously, fingering the bandages that covered her still-bruised eyes.

"Saa… I'm back."

It had been a long, long two weeks. After she had woken up, her vision had still been blurry and uncooperative, with sudden surges of chakra as her body tried to adjust to the Byakugan and the Byakugan tried to adjust her body. Three days after she had cremated Neji, she had woken up screaming in pain as new chakra channels were forged around her eyes, mimicking the veins of a genetic Byakugan user. It was sheer luck that nobody had been around to hear her.

Her clothes were a mess. Most of them had either been used for her wounds or were too dirty to ever be cleaned, so she was wearing Neji's dirty top and shoes, her shorts, and not much else. Her hair was sticking out in all directions, the short strands stiffened by sweat, but thankfully cleaner than it had been.

_She fingered her hair thoughtfully, looking at all the dirt and blood, wondering how long it would take to wash it clean. A memory of Neji flashed through her mind, his long hair whipping in the breeze, and she frowned. Biting her lip harshly to stop tears, Sakura yanked out a kunai and attacked her hair viciously, shearing it shorter than it had ever been before. When she was done, panting from exertion and anger, she looked at herself in her hitae-ate and nodded grimly. Maybe this would remind her to not be so weak._

Sakura sighed. _I look like a hedgehog. A pink, spiky hedgehog. At least- _She shook her head slightly and vanished into the trees and the lands of Konoha proper.

It wasn't long before she caught a glimmer of chakra to her right which soon resolved itself into three distinct shapes coming closer at a fast pace. She growled under her breath, but slowed down nevertheless to let them catch up. When they were within earshot, but doggedly keeping their distance, she stopped suddenly, turning and speaking sharply to the trees.

"Genin! I outrank you, so show yourselves!"

There was a muted clatter of feet on wood and a few branches rustled. Silence reigned, until a shy voice called out from the opposite direction of the slight noise.

"Sorry, Kunoichi-san, but my sensei told me to tail anyone coming past the border and to stay hidden. Um… could I have your name and rank? For our records? Please?"

"Haruno Sakura, Chuunin. I- Sorry for shouting, it's been a very long month. I'll be going now."

She began to move, but stopped and shot a weary smile in the direction where she had heard the footsteps.

"Practice better. I knew you were coming before you started following me."

There were two startled gasps and a quiet exclamation of 'Awesome!' from the trees as she started moving, bouncing off of a few branches for show. A small smile tugged at her lips. _I remember when I was like that… Neji probably would have scared them shitless…_ Sakura frowned and pushed the thought away, concentrating on the journey.

Her brief good mood was completely gone by the time the great walls of Konoha came into sight, and it was with a heavy heart that she entered through one of the secondary gates. Mist shrouded her like a cloak, curling along the ground and making weird shapes amongst the trees. The chuunin on guard duty held her up whilst he wrote down her name and rank, but wisely kept quiet about her tattered clothes and weary appearance.

When she had left the village, and during the first week of the mission, before everything had gone to hell, Sakura had had thoughts of coming home and collapsing on her bed to sleep for a week. After the second week, she had just wanted to get back home. To let the nightmare stop. And after Neji had died, she hadn't thought much about going back at all.

She had just thought about the reports she would have to write out. What she would say to Tsunade. What she would say to Hinata, to Team Gai. How she would deal with the stares and the talk. How people would react when the saw that she had the Byakugan.

So her first stop when she got into the village, wasn't her house as she desperately wanted and wasn't a restaurant as her hungry stomach wanted. It was to the Hokage tower, to give her report and tell Tsunade that her newest Jounin was dead.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **This is it for now. I hope you enjoyed it!

Reviews make me happy! (_hint-hint)_


	3. Inauspicious Meetings

**Disclaimer:** I own peanuts.

_

* * *

_

This kind, this due degree

_Of blindness, weakness_

_Heaven bestows on thee._

_Submit._

-- John Pope

_Once upon a time, there lived a genius and a caged bird one too many times._

Now that she had been back in the village for a week, Sakura had begun to heal from her ordeal. She had been careful to keep her eyes covered and change the bandages regularly, and it looked as if the bruising was finally receding. As of yet, Tsunade hadn't realised that she was using completely opaque bandages, not the ones with a gauze 'window' that would allow her to see, yet still protect her eyes from dust and harsh light.

Her week at the village had also allowed her to step back and take stock, to look logically at her situation and consider her options. Now that she was free to partake in distractions and did not have to centre her whole being upon staying alive, not succumbing to fatigue and to pain, she could think clearer.

She could also grieve.

Telling Tsunade that the mission had been a cleverly orchestrated hoax to gain the Byakugan was the fourth worst moment of her life. The third worst moment was when she had written the official report and had to state precisely _how_ Neji had died. Second was Sasuke leaving. First, of course, was when she had had to kil- was when Neji died.

Sakura hardly remembered coming out of the office, or how she got to the memorial stone. She did remember the feel of the cold hard stone under her hands and the harsh wind whistling through her short hair. She could still feel the tears on her cheeks, bloody streaks that stained her skin as they leaked from her ruined eyes.

Life was harder now, returning to the village and trying to keep a smile on her face, trying to return to the routine that she remembered as normal. She felt like a puzzle piece that wasn't quite in the right alignment with all of the others. Ino had screamed with girlish horror upon seeing her shorn hair and Sakura couldn't bring the heart to tell her that she was the one who had ended Neji's life. It was the same with the others in her peer group. Shikamaru had looked at her with something akin to understanding, but he was the only one who had any idea of what she had faced.

_And there's something you can see – there's something different in the way I smile…_

Training had become a habit now. She no longer relied on Tsunade setting times to teach her for her to go to a field and kick things. Before, she had studied on her own in her room with her books. But now she followed what Neji did – train to get better, and keep on training. Fall down and get back up again, over and over, a constant struggle to better herself.

Wearing bandages had become a habit now, to conceal her new and strange white eyes, but also to hide the random surges of chakra that she suffered from, when the Byakugan would activate, eager to be used. It hurt and it was painful, and reminded her of a time she would rather forget, but… It _had_ saved her skin more than once. When she had been too tired to notice an approaching chakra signature, or to hear someone sneaking up behind her, her eyes would flare, turning her vision monochrome and warning her of her stalker.

For stalker it was. Not only did she have an ANBU member following her for protection, she also saw a _lot_ more of the Hyuuga family – random encounters with branch members that left her feeling twitchy and paranoid. It was coming to the one-month mark of her return when her ANBU guard was dropped and she was summoned to the Hokage's office.

_Behind these eyes I'm blind._

"…a complete disgrace to the entire village! Have you not thought what it says to our enemies to still teach an apprentice who is blind?!"

"Tsunade, we merely wish for the best interests of the village. For Konoha's sake, we believe it would be best that the Haruno girl be… dismissed."

There was silence for a few moments, in which Sakura took the opportunity to better position herself against the door.

"You wish me to end her apprenticeship?" That was Tsunade, sounding deceptively amiable.

"No."

"What we," a new voice joined the conversation. "What we wish for is for her to be demoted, back to genin. Giving her jounin status was a highly inappropriate action to take, considering her conduct on her last mission."

Sakura had to stifle a gasp – she had been made _jounin_? And Shishou hadn't told her?

"And now we come to the crux of the matter, don't we Hiashi? Not content to merely let this go, are we? Not now that you've read the report on just _how_ Neji died."

The atmosphere in the room was turning nasty and Sakura decided she had eavesdropped long enough. Her Byakugan activating was enough of a warning, and she performed a teleportation jutsu onto the roof outside Tsunade's window, jumping through almost immediately.

"I sneezed, so I thought I should get here a little early. You wanted to see me, Shishou?"

The occupants of the room seemed slightly taken aback at her sudden appearance and Sakura's sunny smile took on a slightly sardonic edge. As she had suspected, the visitors numbered four – herself, the two council-members with an irritating knack for interference, and Hiashi, head of the Hyuuga clan.

_And there's nothing you can say, because you're never going to change my mind._

"Ah, yes. Sakura. Thank you for coming so promptly." _**Translate to: **__Yes, I know you were eavesdropping, but I'll ignore it for now._

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Aha! Bet you all thought this was dead, didn't you? BUT THERE IS A NEW CHAPTER! REJOICE!

Ahem. Some of you may recognise the quotes at the start fo the chapter - they're from a very good neji-centric music video on youtube.

youtube(dot)com(forwardslash)watch?v(equals)zB21H(hyphen)BOVNU

Reviews make me happy! (_hint-hint_)


End file.
